


Fighting

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Depression, Fighting, I'm Sorry, Major Character Injury, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Other, Post-Break Up, Sad Ending, Suicide, bUT LIKE WONWOO GETS A PET TURTLE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:27:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7612777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seungcheol let out a deep sigh. </p><p>He clicked.</p><p>He opened his eyes to the webcam and forced a smile, "I guess I have a lot to explain."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fighting

**Author's Note:**

> Major trigger warning  
> Literally everything is triggering I'm sorry iTS VERY SAD AND DARK
> 
> ALSO BEWARE THOSE OF YOU THAT ARE HOSHI BIASED I'M SORRYYYY

Absolute silence rang through their home.

Seungcheol crept through the hallway, past Jihoon's closed door. He knew by now that Jihoon would have gone to sleep, even if he was having night terrors like he's had for the last 10 months. Seungcheol got into their studio room without making almost any noise. He shut the door, wincing slightly when he heard the hinges creak. Once properly inside, he decided not to turn on the main lights; just the small desk lamp Jihoon turned on if it was dark out. Which it surely was now. It was two-in-the-morning and Seungcheol had been waiting for this all day.

No, he was not going to start masturbating. No, he was not going to snoop through Jihoon's laptop. He wasn't going to be doing anything like that. But he did sit down in the desk chair and turned on Jihoon's laptop. His eyes stung and watered as he adjusted to the computer's bright light. He typed in Jihoon's user password and his eyes combed through the icons on the desktop. There were some random pictures and files, some music files and software, some computer games and some video-editing software as well. But Seungcheol wasn't looking for any of that. He was looking for the webcam software.

And he found it. He found it and turned the small computer webcam on, adjusting the screen of the monitor to show his whole face. He shifted the lamp to illuminate him. Now on the screen you could see an alert yet sleepless Seungcheol, his expression saddened but determined. He had pretty much planned, or at least thought about this speech since about 2 weeks after the big thing happened; in other words for about 7 months.

But now he was here, unable to let go of the past, yet unable to click record on the computer to move on to his life in a grief-free future. Seungcheol let out a deep sigh. 

He clicked.

He opened his eyes to the webcam and forced a smile, "I guess I have a lot to explain."

"Hello Carat, it's Seungch- er- S.Coups... Former leader of the kpop band Seventeen. It's been quite a long time since any of us have been in contact with you, for that I'm extremely sorry. I feel like we... left... without telling you our problems. Some you may know, some you may not. But now I'm here to clarify everything."

He spoke in a quiet, shaky tone. Much unlike he usually does. Perhaps it was like that because it was late and he was trying not to wake up Woozi, or maybe it was because this was still such a sensitive thing to him and he easily became emotional over it.

Still, he took a deep breath and kept going,

"So... you all should know that 8 months ago we announced Seventeen's dissolve. Our breakup. We announced it officially on June 4th, 2017. It's now February 20th, 2018 at 2(AM). A lot of you know one or two of the reasons why, and I'll get to that in a second. But now I'm going to tell you how everyone is fairing."

"The only ones I can tell you about for sure are Woozi, Mingyu, Wonwoo and Vernon. Firstly, Woozi and I have been living together and making music since we lost our dorm. The music will be out sometime in the near future so please anticipate us!" He did a hand-heart against his chest and flashed a semi-genuine smile to the camera, trying to add a bit of light into this topic. However, he went back to his serious nature and continued to explain,

"So Wonwoo and Mingyu had been saving up to buy a house together like Woozi and I did. I've kept pretty frequent contact with Mingyu, he's been spending time with family and finding other skills besides rap. Wonwoo, who I barely talk to, has also moved back in with family. According to Mingyu, he also got a pet turtle, which I found kinda hilarious."

"Vernon I've also kept in contact with. He's living on his own, pretty close to his parents. He's had a few girlfriends on-and-off and I'm not sure where he is there. But he's put out a few mixtapes I'm sure you've heard. I'm quite proud of him really. He's really grown up. I'd love to get him over here again to collaborate with Woozi and I on some music. It'd be a treat for you guys."

"The rest have been hard to keep up with. The8 and Jun went back to China, Jun went to doing a lot of acting in dramas and is pretty popular over there. I think The8 went on to do vlogging, which kinda shocked me since he's not very outgoing. But they're still friends and have done some projects together. Joshua went back to L.A and has done some songs in English and spend time with his family. Seungkwan I'm assuming went back to Jeju, haven't heard of him in the media so I'm guessing he's resting his throat for awhile. I don't know anything about Dokyeom except he's done a few OSTs for some dramas. Jeonghan and Dino I haven't heard about, I honestly have no idea... And then there's Hoshi..." He got teary eyed when he thought about Hoshi. He inhaled deeply and looked away from the camera until he regained his sense a little bit,

"So, the reason why I wanted to make this. I wanted to tell you why we broke up. In detail. You guys have been in the dark for so long and you deserve every ounce of detail about this I can give you."

"I guess the beginning of the end was the vocal unit. That was probably a bit more than a year ago, maybe January. Seungkwan really injured his throat again. His family got really upset and worried about that and were wanting him to leave the band. Of course our label didn't want that to happen since our comeback was right around the corner. But Jeonghan and sometimes Woozi, agreed with his family that he should leave, or at least take hiatus from this comeback. I really disagreed with both of them, Seungkwan just had to be a bit more careful, taking the big step to remove him from a comeback that could make us famous worldwide was not something I was willing to do. And definitely not something Seungkwan wanted to do. That made the whole vocal unit extremely tense, and Seungkwan was very unhappy being singled out for awhile."

"So Seungkwan became very toned down in the group. He was barely given lines. He never got lines unless our staff slapped Woozi's hand for not giving him any. And the whole vocal unit became stressed. My friendship with Jeonghan was gone because he felt it was right to single Seungkwan out like that. He said it was because Seungkwan should focus on healing and being healthy. But he could have done that perfectly well still in the band. I thought it was really selfish of Jeonghan to think like that. Obviously some people stood by Seungkwan or Jeonghan and divided our band. And the more we talked about it, yelled about it, cried about it, the more it drove us apart."

"That was always a problem, but the gist of it happened in about 3 months. Since then things felt tense and hurt. Another thing that had really been a problem since we debuted was Vernon. I hate to say he was a problem but he never really felt right. Obviously he'd been in the band as long as anyone could remember, but when we debuted he suffered a huge self-esteem drop due to the attention he was getting. The attention made him more popular than other members and that led to his insecurities. And this fight just brought out the worst in everyone and he started wanting to leave the band, especially if Seungkwan was. Because even though they were in different units, they were really amazing friends."

"And then another problem. Woozi and I. Another thing that's been there since debut. The power struggle between us has always been a reason to be upset. Because I was the leader, I should be doing all this work, I should be helping people and cheering people up. And Woozi just did 3/4 of the work for the band. He was the one actually leading things and not me. He's always bossed me around and not the other way around. And that rubbed me and a few other people in the band the wrong way. They almost didn't see me as the leader anymore. Of course, most of that changed after what happened with Hoshi. But when Hoshi had... done... the thing... Woozi changed. He became very quiet, very fragile, very depressed. He didn't stomp me down anymore. But he started having night terrors and emotional episodes which, in my mind, is much, much worse. I can't even imagine what it's like for Woozi."

Seungcheol now had silent tears streaming down his face as he recalled everything about that time. He could barely speak clearly as he remembered Woozi's ill and sunken-in face. Seungkwan's face twisted with anger, contempt, betrayal, sadness. Dino's youthful face red with tear stains. Hoshi... He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts and looked into the camera and shakily continued,

"So everyone was upset with everyone else. People like Wonwoo and Mingyu, or Jun and The8 depended on each other to stay sane. Not to want to leave and never come back. Dino was quite fragile during this time, he was just watching this world crumble around him. But everything was worse for Hoshi. Hoshi was against Woozi on everything, rather than with. The gag trio completely broke apart. Dokyeom was upset that Seungkwan ruined the band. Seungkwan was a complete emotional wreck in general due to everything that had happened earlier in the year. And then there was Hoshi, still happy, still cheerful, still supporting his hyungs and dongsaengs. No one knew how he felt inside. No one. He was practically the happiness glueing our broken units together."

"B-but... You know what happened..."

Seungcheol was full-on sobbing, cutting off himself with his hiccups and shaky sighs. How Woozi hadn't woken up by now was beyond him.

But he realized,

Almost no one knew what happened to Hoshi.

He had to tell them,

He regained his control enough to continue, gasping and sighing between almost every word, "It was May. We were walking to the training rooms. The leaves were beautiful. Bright green. Growing and dancing over our heads. We weren't wearing our winter coats anymore. Hoshi was walking with Dino and Joshua. Hoshi stopped walking suddenly. Joshua asked what was wrong and I lagged behind to see what was going on. Hoshi smiled goofily and said, 'I forgot something at the dorm, you guys go on without me'"

"We watched him run back to the dorms, not even giving it a second thought when we walked the rest of the way to the training rooms. He... We didn't... It was about two hours later when we realized something was wrong when Hoshi didn't come back... Woozi ran back to the dorms to check on him... I... I got a text about 18 minutes later from Woozi, it only said, 'Hoshi is dying'... I... Gathered up the band and sprinted to the dorms... Mingyu and I barged through the door first... And we saw..."

"There was a long, doubled-up strand of clothesline hanging from one of the ceiling's support beams... A piece of paper on the coffee table, written on in Hoshi's handwriting... Woozi... Was on the floor in front of Hoshi, who was propped up against the sofa... He looked pale blue, his eyes were bulging under his eyelids and very distinct red marks were around his neck... Woozi was yelling something I couldn't understand at first. But then I heard what it was, 'Hoshi fighting! Hoshi fighting!' He was screaming it over and over, shaking Hoshi's shoulders."

"When Hoshi would fall asleep, the one thing that would wake him up was us yelling, 'Hoshi fighting!' We only needed to say it once. It always worked. But... Hoshi never woke up. Woozi managed to get him off the ropes but Hoshi had suffocated probably hours before we arrived."

"And... That was rock bottom. We read Hoshi's suicide letter over and over, 'I just wanted to keep us together. But I couldn't do that. I failed. I failed the one thing I was put on this earth for, and I'm sorry.'"

"And a week after that the band had broken up. None of us could endure staying together through that... And we went our separate ways..." 

Seungcheol rested his head in his head and cried. He had never talked about this with anyone since it happened. It felt like being cut open. All the guilt flooded back into him. He needed to turn off the webcam before anything got worse.

"I'm sorry." Said Seungcheol, clicking the stop button. He continued to cry into his hands after the cam had stopped recording. He now had 23 minutes of footage explaining Seventeen's last two years. He felt as though Soonyoung had just died again, Jeonghan and Jihoon yelled at him again, Chan had cried again, Seungkwan grabbed his shirt and shook him again, Seokmin stared at him, Wonwoo reminisced with him, Mingyu didn't fill the silence when they sat together, Hansol acted subdued and crushed, Minghao and Junhui had hushed conversations in Chinese, and Jisoo just sat still and quiet. Everything came back about how he couldn't save his own band and this had driven someone to suicide.

Seungcheol turned off the computer and the lamp. He walked out of the room to find the kitchen light on. He walked slowly into the kitchen to see Jihoon making tea.

"That was really brave of you." He said, pouring water into two cups, handing one to Seungcheol, "I heard everything."

Seungcheol nodded, holding his tea. He tried to sip it but it burnt his tongue. He looked up to see Jihoon staring at him. He sighed, "Did night terrors wake you up again?"

"Yes. But now isn't the time to talk about that." Jihoon raised his teacup, "Seventeen fighting?"

Seungcheol nodded, clinking his cup against Jihoon's, "Seventeen fighting."

And they drank their tea. The toast not only to Seventeen, but Seungcheol could feel it was for everything. For Seventeen, for their careers, for Hoshi, for Seungkwan, for Vernon, for Dokyeom, for Dino, for The8, for Jun, for Jeonghan, for Mingyu, for Wonwoo, for Woozi and S.Coups.

And for everything that lies ahead.


End file.
